Documentary Talents

There is no photo attached to this post, you have to look up to the right, where you get three of them. Co-editor of filmkommentaren.dk, Allan Berg, suggested that I chose three obvious talents, who have made films which travel and are awarded, and who will – hopefully – give us more great works in decades to come. Here they are:

To the left Sara Ishaq, two films of hers have been on filmkommentaren.dk, both dealing with Yemen: ”Kamara has No Walls”, nominated for an Oscar 2013 and ”The Mulberry House” from 2013, a quote from the review of the latter: A family film? Yes. Private? No. Personal? Yes, as it is a film about a daughter, who returns to her roots… oops, now the words start to be klichés. Roots, yes but conveyed in a way so we non-yemenites easily can identify with the family, the three generations and its situation, in a film that captures the warmth and passes it on to us in a light tone that is broken when reality knocks on the door.

In the middle Salome Jashi, who after the short films ”Their Helicopter” and ”Speechless” made the middle length ”The Leader is always Right” an ” observational documentary from one of the patriotic youth camps in Georgia” before turning to what is her international breakthrough, ”Bahkmaro”, that gave her the main award in Jihlava 2011. The jury motivation was precise: “With an attentive and personal approach the filmmaker transforms an ordinary microcosm into a unique narrative and playful visual experience. Through an effective and assured cinematic language this film reveals the mood and the spirit of a society struggling with its internal hopes and contradictions. For its respect, artistry and quest for surprise the award for the Best film of “The Between the Seas” Competition goes to Bakhmaro by Salome Jashi.”

To the right Davis Simanis, Latvian documentary director and editor, whose film about the new national library in Riga won the Baltic award at the festival in Vilnius in 2013: ” ”Chronicles of the Last Temple”, a superb interpretation of the new and much discussed National Library of Riga, a film that shows Simanis ability to capture the grandeur of a building and its details in a super aesthetic form. His newest work ”Escaping Riga” presents in an original cinematic form two world-class 20th century geniuses, the British philosopher Sir Isaiah Berlin and the Russian film director Sergei Eisenstein.

EDN Terminates DOX/ 3

Emanuele Vernillo, didactic tutor at Zelig School for Documentary, Television and New Media in Bolzano calls the decision “absurd”. Here is his text:

I am reading with big interest the discussions about the closing of DOX on paper. I want to add to these also my and our (ZeLIG) concern… If you think that the ‘circulation of our concern’ may help a discussion about this absurd decision, please feel free to publish it on your blog and wherever it would be useful.

As you know, we are a trilingual documentary film school, a very special institution where students from all over the world join together and attend seminars in german, italian and english. As you know and as anybody can easily understand, english becomes suddenly the main spoken language: inside this context DOX ‘was’ the only magazine which can strongly support the circulation of ideas, comments, critics about the documentary film scene all over the world. It is such an enormous loss for all the film-makers and particularly for our school. Which magazine can serve as substitute to it? We have made a subscription to ‘Sight and Sound’, but what DOX has been for the documentary film scene is not substitutable. 

In these days I have taken in my hands the issue nr. 100, ‘DOX in Dialogue’: it was simply marvellous, the conversations between Luciano Barisone and Nicholas Philibert, Joshua Oppenheimer and Werner Herzog. Who is going to tell to our future students that this won’t be published anymore?

Yes, there will be probably the digital editions… But I have the impression that we are not yet in an era where digital magazines are easily usable… 

I can understand the financial situation worldwide, from which EDN is probably suffering like many other institutions… But a bigger effort not to renounce to such a big resource would be very welcomed!!

Mikala Krogh: Ekstra Bladet uden for citat

Landmanden i sin mark, maleren i sit atelier, journalisten ved tastaturet. Poul Madsen her ved sit skrivebord, han var altid min helt i tv-virkeligheden, når jeg så Presselogen og han var med. Det var ham jeg glædede mig til. Hvor herligt at se en film, hvor han er helten i en gedigen filmisk virkelighed. En helt, som bare er nærværende og beslutningsdygtig i hver scene, han er med i. Også når han lytter, han lytter nemlig meget aktiv. Og filmen viser hvordan og derefter hvorfor. Så enkelt og selvfølgeligt. Og jeg kan være til stede ved siden af ham på Ekstra Bladets redaktion en lang afgørende periode i avisens liv. Jeg er der bare og glemmer, at jeg ser en film, også når jeg i filmens smukt opdelte og blidt klippede grundinterview og rammefortælling (er det jo, selv om det ikke ligner) sidder i hans bil til og fra arbejde, og han fortæller mig om avisens væsen og farerne, som lige nu skal undviges. Så godt skjult er filmholdets arbejdsindsats, og det er fordi, det simpelthen er en god film, de har lavet, Mikala Krogh (manuskript, fotografi og instruktion), Kasper Leick (klip), Rasmus Winther (lyddesign), Jonas Struck (musik), Torsten Høgh Rasussen (grafik) og Sigrid Dyekjær (produktion), alle håndværkere i hver deres værksted i virkelighedens tjeneste. Filmens virkelighed.

Det er en dobbeltbundet titel, Mikala Krogh har givet filmen. Uden for citat betyder jo sagt i fortrolighed og til baggrund. Det er altså en hemmelighed, som røbes. Men uden for citat betyder også, og det bekræfter slutskiltet næsten overflødigt, at når den usynlige forfatter / fotograf / instruktør flytter ind med sit kamera, så skildres virkeligheden der, som den er, som denne ene kvinde med kamera opfatter den. Som hun har tænkt den i direkte kamera og cinéma vérité. Og så er det selvfølgelig ikke nødvendigt at citere, ikke nødvendigt med vidner og interviews. Det er selve udsagnet, de medvirkendes og stedets, som ender i biografen. Dette forehavende gennemføres forrygende. Jeg tabte pusten og genvandt den kun kort et par steder, og det var så kortvarigt, at jeg bare noterede et intentisitetsfald ved 30 min. (det kan være farligt, men ikke her), og igen ved 60 min.

Men heller ikke her nåede jeg at begynde at kede mig ved de små og større sager i avishusets dagligdag, bestemt ikke. Jeg fulgte jo, var af klippet umærkeligt tvunget til at følge, de fire parallelhandlinger, der er lagt ud, klippet i lange scener, som er fuldstændigt naturligt dagligdags forbundne i friktionsfri overgange: avisens katastofale økonomi og oplagstal, kampen mellem papirudgave og net, senere tv og efterhånden også smerten ved reduktion af medarbejdergruppen ved såkaldt frivillig afgang. Endelig den langvarige og nu minderige sag om sømændene Søren fra Ærø og hans kollega Eddy, som de mange, mange dage var gidsler hos pirater i Somalia. Den fortælling indeholder filmens dramahøjdepunkt, de 30 minutter, hvor søfolkene var alene på den afrikanske strand, piraterne havde trukket sig tilbage, de danske tropper var i syne og på vej, redaktionen var i telefonforbindelse med deres mand på stedet og samtidig i kapløb med TV2 News om breaking news: ”… gidslerne bliver netop nu frigivet”. Men fortællingen indeholder også Poul Madsens håndtering af sin interessanteste krise, offentlighedens og senere pressenævnets alvorlige kritik og især Eddys klagesag. Det sidste er det værste for ham, og den vigtigste detalje i en vigtig og meget seværdig film.

Danmark 2014, 95 min.

Filmen har i et samarbejde med DOXBIO premiere i en række biografer 1. oktober: http://www.doxbio.dk/?page_id=23

EDN Terminates DOX/ 2

PeÅ Holmquist, director and producer of documentary films, first President of EDN has written a letter about DOX:

In EDN Newsletter, week 37, I get the news about our magazine DOX:Doesn’t exist anymore!  DOX has been there nearly from when we started EDN – quite a long time ago. In EDN Weekly, 37, I read “with deep regret I have to announce that I had to decide to terminate the publishing of Dox Magazine.?”

I think the EDN-director Paul Pauwels is making a big mistake. And as one of the founders of EDN I find it strange that this decision comes with a very low-key way and with an “I had to decide”.

I think/thought  this kind of a decision would be much more profound and I think it’s not enough that this is a “one man decision”. About the reason to stop DOX we just get a few sentences from PP about the loss of money from Creative Europe. No discussion from the EDN Executive committee, no exact calculations are shown to us! It’s also typical that I myself didn’t find this news with the EDN newsletter? I missed it. I found it on filmkommentaren.dk and a very concerned note from Emma Davie, also one of EDN:s old members.

I think one problem lately with EDN is that the Business behind documentary film has taken more and more place. Less and less about the culture behind our genre. Why are we making these films? It’s certainly not because of the money. I spent 35 years of my filmmaking in the Middle East (10 of them also teaching Palestinian filmmakers) – this was also not because of money! We need to discuss our films and the reasons behind, and what kind of reactions we and our film get , etc ?

That’s why we need something like DOX . We have enough of Pitching Forums already.

I sincerely hope and I urge the EDN executive committee to initiate a discussion about Dox or a new DOX at the General Assembly in Amsterdam in November this year.

PeÅ Holmquist, documentary filmmaker. First chairman for EDN

pea.holmquist@comhem.se

Michael Moore:Filmmakers not Documentarians

Last week Michael Moore, at the Toronto International Film Festival Doc Conference, 25 years after his “Roger and me” (photo) was released, presented 13 rules for making documentary films. A manifesto. He stressed that documentary filmmakers should not be called documentarians but filmmakers, and ”Also, I don’t want people leaving the theater depressed after my movies. I want them angry. Depressed is a passive emotion. Anger is active. Anger will mean that maybe 5 percent, 10 percent of that audience will get up and say, “I gotta do something. I’m going to tell others about this. I’m going to go look up more about this on the Internet. I’m gonna join a group and fight this!””

His full speech is to be found on Indiewire, link below, where you will also find colleague, documentarian, sorry filmmaker Jo Berlinger’s response to Moore, as thoughtful and analytical as Moore’s contribution is entertaining and provocative. Other filmmakers are also asked to comment in the fine IndieWire articles. A long quote from Berlinger:

“Not calling ourselves “documentarians” is a very old argument that ignores the amazing expansion of the form and the pushing of boundaries that

Michael himself was huge part of ushering in. When we launched “Brother’s Keeper” at Sundance in 1992, we made it part of our press strategy to call it a “nonfiction feature film” and to avoid the word “documentary” because of the “castor oil” baggage of the word — we certainly weren’t the first and obviously not the last to make a conscious effort to not only avoid the “D” word, but to make an issue of how we were different from traditional (i.e., “boring”) documentaries… that was 23 years ago.

But, since the late 1980’s through the 1990’s generally beginning with with “The Thin Blue Line” (by using highly stylized re-creations), “Roger & Me” (by using humor and making the filmmaker an on-screen personality) and “Paris is Burning” (taking us into a world documentaries didn’t normally dare to go) and throughout the 1990’s and beyond, there has been an amazing explosion in the volume and creativity of the form, pushing the documentary into new places of cinematic expression and techniques, from artfully shot re-creations, to using documentary not just to “educate,” but also ambiguous human character portraits to, yes, the modern day advocacy film…”

http://www.indiewire.com/article/joe-berlinger-on-michael-moore-and-the-changing-market-for-documentaries-20140915

Gerber, Pozdorovkin: The Notorious Mr. Bout

DR2 Dokumania inviterer i dag i god tid til kulturnat 10. oktober og skriver: ”Mød folkene bag DR2 Dokumania, når vi inviterer indenfor til Dokumania LIVE. Hør, hvordan vi spotter de bedste historier, og se tre af de vildeste dokumentarfilm.” Det er jo en klar udmelding: De bedste historier og de vildeste dokumentarfilm. Det er så med det klart, at det er underholdning, som prioriteres der i huset, og inden for underholdning er det følgelig underholdningskvalitet. Herefter gælder det om at folde de brede begreber ”bedst” og ”vildest” ud i nuancer. Det er der generøs lejlighed til hver tirsdag aften.

Altså for eksempel i aften ved at åbne for den på sin måde bestemt interessante historie og vilde dokumentar om den internationale købmand / forretningsmand / fragtmand Viktor Bout, hvis historie gennem nu godt to årtiers karriere skildres i en omhyggelig researched, effektivt klippet og elegant produceret filmbiografi i den konventionelle amerikansk-britiske tv-stil, som ser ud til at være en Dokumania specialitet. Man vil bestemt blive trygt og godt underholdt i aften på DR2 Dokumania 20:45!

På fotografiet sidder Viktor Bout i cockpittet i et af sine transportfly. Han kan godt lide at have fingrene på grebene direkte i materialet, ude på stederne, hvor det foregår. Han bliver hele tiden beskyldt for at være international våbenhandler uden skrupler, selv hævder han at være en fragtmand, som ikke blander sig i kassernes indhold. Han sørger blot for, de kommer sikkert fra og sikkert frem til bestemmelsesstedet, som kunden har angivet. Og det er alle på hver sin måde vilde, eksotiske steder som Angola, De arabiske emirater, Bulgarien, Sydafrika, Den demokratiske republik Congo, Rwanda og endelig hans skæbnes Bangkok, Thailand, og tidsmæssigt repeterer filmen begivenheder og forløb af verdenshistorien fra 1991 til 2011. Ja, det er underholdning, men jeg tror også Dokumaniaholdet blandt de bedste og vildeste filmhistorier vælger de belærende. Det sidste er måske det mest interessante, se selv efter i aften…

UK 2014, 90 min.

EDN Terminates DOX Magazine

A ”EDN Weekly” newsletter came out. In a subordinate clause there was shocking news: ”… I had to decide to terminate the publishing…” of DOX Magazine. Just like that. Voilà. A big big mistake! After more than 100 issues the magazine that has been a key element in the profile of EDN, the death of the magazine was declared by Paul Pauwels (PP), the director of EDN. An online issue is under discussion, coming from the office, probably more a member´s magazine than what DOX was – the international documentary FILM magazine. PP, the terminator, who always communicates on behalf of EDN in first person, had made the decision after consultation with the executive committee of the association. The reason: first of all due to financial reasons.

A mistake. Yes, a wrong priority from PP. When EDN way back took over the publishing of the magazine, we did so because there was a need for a documentary FILM magazine and because we thought this was the right way to tell our members that EDN is not “only” about money, where to find them, workshops, pitching etc. but also about the art of documentary. Side by side of Sight & Sound, that comes out on paper and online, like several other national film magazines, DOX, published by EDN but always independent editorially to avoid it being a mere communication tool for EDN, the magazine has had EDN members as main readers but it has also been spread around to non-members as it was this last week in Riga where Eastern European documentarians were offered a free copy – a service to filmmakers who can not afford to be members of EDN.

In Riga Emma Davie, always a true supporter of EDN, and I, former director

and one of the initiators of the magazine, discussed what went wrong. Emma was in contact with PP and wrote to him:

“But as part of this documentary family (EDN, ed.) – I have to say very clearly and strongly that I disagree.  If EDN focuses just on the business of documentary and not the culture behind it, it runs the risk of forgetting to feed the creativity which the market needs to thrive on.  Films like “The Act of Killing” do well not because they have listened to a market but because they come from a passion, an enquiry into form, an awareness of a tradition behind it. This enquiry is fed so little in any magazine. DOX is unique  for providing us with inspiration in this way. We need this as film makers to survive in this business as much as any strategies for dealing with dwindling tv sales…” 

What could have been done to keep DOX alive…

Another priority of course – cutting down in other activities.

Asking the members to help financially? Crowdfunding?

Finding a new publisher – or someone to collaborate with? Did you ask the festivals, PP, the DocAlliance, the DFI to increase their contribution together with other film institutes, or direct you where to go, private film buff sponsors…

Publish the magazine twice a year…?

And so on so forth. Dear Paul, dear friend, we all make mistakes, you made a wrong decision, it is never too late to change it. Become the innovator and not the terminator!

Scorcese on his new Book Film

Copy-paste quote from RealScreen on Martin Scorcese talking about his new documentary “The 50 Year Argument” on New York Review of Books, co-directed with David Tedeschi. A talk taking place in Toronto at the international film festival, read more, link below:

Despite his reservation over the characterization of non-fiction films, Scorsese said he enjoyed making such films. “There’s a sense of freedom in that I’m not shackled to a conventional narrative,” he said. “I find that the challenges are everywhere, but there’s more of a sense of freedom.” With The 50 Year Argument, the director said he and Tedeschi “had no plan” at the start of the project. “We had to find our way through. With non-fiction, it’s a bigger responsibility, it’s a bigger gamble.”

The director also discussed the impact that The New York Review of Books – and literature in general – had had on him over the past half-century. “Books fascinated me – and still do,” he said. “But they fascinate me also as objects; books themselves become very precious to me. “It took me a long time to learn to read a book, to live with a book.”

The 50 Year Argument marks Scorsese’s sixth doc collaboration with Tedeschi, and their first as co-directors. Tedeschi previously served as editor on 2011′s George Harrison: Living in the Material World, 2010′s Public Speaking, 2008′s Shine a Light, 2005′s No Direction Home, and an episode of Scorsese’s 2003 doc series The Blues.

http://realscreen.com/2014/09/12/tiff-14-scorsese-talks-docs-books-in-toronto/#ixzz3DCmePyRw

New Danish Documentaries to Message to Man

“GlobalDoK: Danish Film Institute Present” is the title chosen for a presentation of new Danish documentaries in St.Petersburg at the Message to Man festival (September 20-27). In collaboration with the DFI and with me as a helper for the programmer Mikhail Zheleznikov the following films were chosen: 1. Ai Weiwei The Fake Case by Andreas Johnsen (2013) 2. Sepideh – Reaching for the Stars by Berit Madsen (2013) 3. Ambassador by Mads Brügger (2011) 4. The Will by Christian Sønderby Jepsen (2011) 5. Armadillo by Janus Metz Pedersen (2010) 6. Burma vj by Anders Østergaard (2008) 7. The Good Life by Eva Mulvad (2010) 8. The Ghost of Piramida (photo) by Andreas Koefoed (2013). Andreas Johnsen, Andreas Koefoed and Anders Østergaard will meet the audience and the Danish Cultural Institute will host an afternoon seminar on Danish documentaries. I will be there to introduce and moderate. For the festival catalogue I wrote the following promotion text: 

GlobalDoK… well, the selection for this series of new Danish documentaries includes films that are shot in China, Iran, Central African Republic, Afghanistan, Burma, Portugal, Norway/Russia – and Denmark/Germany. So to call it GlobalDK with a small o between D and K seems to be a good choice by the organizers.

Global, but is nothing interesting happening in Denmark? Boring country? No stories to find? Or do the Danish documentarians just love to travel? Or are the Danish film people engaged and committed in a way so they have to deal with the troubles of the Chinese world famous artist Ai WeiWei, the dream of the Iranian girl Sepideh, the international diamant mafia and its

corrupt players in an African country, Danish soldiers in Afghanistan, the courageous freedom fight of video journalists in Burma… Mother and daughter also fight, each other, and to make ends meet to have a good life in Portugal, whereas the Danish Band Efterklang is looking for sound inspiration in the abandoned Russian mining town Piramida in Spitsbergen. And then there is the story about the Danish family, where a son inherits money from his grandfather…

I am not the one to answer the questions. You better ask the filmmakers who attend this retrospective of important Danish documentaries from the last 5-10 years. But what I can say is that the Danish support system, channelled mostly through The Danish Film Institute, is rich and has established the basis for the big budgets needed if you want to shoot abroad. On top of that a strong part of the Danish documentary culture is formed by producers, who are able to find coproducers in the other Nordic countries and the rest of the world.

The directors

Three of the directors have graduated from The National Film School of Denmark: Christian Sønderby Jepsen (”The Will”), Eva Mulvad (”The Good Life”) and Andreas Koefoed (”The Ghost of Piramida”). Andreas Johnsen (”Ai WeiWei – The Fake Case”) is autodidact, Berit Madsen has attended Ateliers Varan in Paris, whereas Anders Østergaard (”Burma vj”) and Mads Brügger (”The Ambassador”) both have a journalistic background, the latter being head of programming at a radio channel.

Storytelling

You will be disappointed if you expect to find classical observational documentaries in this selection from Denmark. What we agreed to bring to St.Petersburg are films that break the rules of the documentary genre and in some cases actually provoke the tradition.

”The Ambassador” is at the foreground in that respect in a film where the director takes upon himself a role far from what you expect from an objective investigative journalist, who wants to look into fraud and corruption. It has the touch of a comedy as has ”The Will”, set up in the style of a feature film with wonderful characters. The intention of ”Armadillo” was the same and to everyone’s pleasant surprise the film, built as a feature drama, sold around 120.000

tickets in Danish cinemas, provoked a public debate and – many say so – changed the public opinion about the Danish participation in the war in Afghanistan.

In terms of ”Burma vj” it definitely had an impact on the public opinion around the world – with a huge distribution and with more than 50 awards at festivals, and an Oscar nomination. The way this film was made is a fascinating piece of journalism itself with the director creating a story from the material smuggled out of the country.

The intimacy of ”The Good Life” – mother and daughter – is conveyed by Eva Mulvad like a tragi-comical chamber play, whereas Andreas Johnsen’s film is a scoop in itself. Where Ai WeiWei said no to all international news agencies, when he came out of prison on bail, Andreas Johnsen came in, became friends with the artist and followed him for a long period in his forced isolation. A question of getting access as it was for Berit Madsen to get into Iran close to the girl Sepideh, who wants to become an astronaut.

Andreas Koefoed made his film about and with the band members of Efterklang, sketchy it is, with great music and characters who up there in the North are so clearly as far away from Denmark you may come.

You will not be disappointed if you look for new storytelling in this series. Call it docu-fiction. Or hybrid documentary. Or staged documentary. Or docudrama. It’s all there and it is not boring. If it is good, judge for yourself. Enjoy!

http://message2man.com/en/about/